Re: [xmca] debt crisis, cultural memory, and narrativity

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

As for the importance of form, note the form of communication in this clip,
and how they get a message from center to the outer reaches of the periphery
using only human voices, no megaphones or loudspeakers:

http://dialogic.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-bloomberg-backs-down.html

I find it emotionally quite stirring.
-greg

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>wrote:

> Hi Larry,
>
> I was just talking about this with some colleagues.  I think it is
> interesting that most people don't consider a common thread to #OWS to be a
> single thing (one of the reasons that the movement is refusing to put forth
> a reified set of demands)  but is actually a process - the use of the
> Internet as a communicative device in order to build a movement.  There is a
> narrative, but I think you would have a hard time thinking of this narrative
> as being linear in any way.  Instead it is a pinging back and forth of
> ideas, actions, relationships, moving from level to level with extraordinary
> speed and facility in ways that we have never seen before.  The entire
> system of channels and gatekeepers of information that has been developed
> over the last century has more or less collapsed.  Videos go viral, human
> productive actions move from one arena to another, individuals come together
> and then disperse, and what holds it together I think is multi-lateral
> communications through the Internet using a series of slowly developing hubs
> (e.g. DailyKos).
>
> What is most amazing I think about what is happening, and suggests that it
> is something new, is that traditional gatekeepers simply don't know what to
> make of it or how to respond.  It has become impossible to ignore, but some
> ridicule, some become angry, some are confused, some try to co-opt.  What is
> also interesting is that way in which direct activity has taken on the form
> of the Internet.  One of the less remarked phenomena of #OWS (and there are
> many) is the organic development of General Assemblies.  These are
> completely open in which any person can make an argument or suggestion, or
> point.  The meetings are non-linear (although I continue to think we need
> another term), but they work in ways people would have not thought possible.
>
> Anyway need a dissertation topic?
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Larry Purss
> Sent: Mon 10/17/2011 2:19 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [xmca] debt crisis, cultural memory, and narrativity
>
>
>
> The occupy wall street movement and the Arab Spring. Do they have a common
> source?? Is that source our relation to DEBT as a moral stance embedded
> within capitalistic activities which get represented within narrative form?
>
> I'm attaching an article on narrativity in text construction and its
> relation to various notions of self construction.  I think it is an
> interesting summary of the question, Is narrativity a primary or a
> secondary
> phenomena? The article may be interesting for locating various notions or
> assumptions of "the self" and the sense of "situated agency or
> intentionality" assumed.
>
>  If the occupy wall street movement is a "space" to create an alternative
> narrative that challenges exchange value social relations, then how we view
> narrativity, speech acts, and activity are central concerns.   I found the
> discussion of "soft notions" of "self" or "identity" interesting.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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